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Facing a show of female power in The Apprentice semi-final this week, Sir Alan's sidekick Nick put it best. “Four women? That's a turn-up.”
And as for having two women finalists in the boardroom next week opposite a businessman worth £800 million whose motto is “maternity laws have gone too far” — well, that's priceless.
Suddenly the future of business looks a lot more female. On Sunday night Sir Alan will decide between the ice-cool Kate Walsh, 27, licensing development manager for a coffee company, and fiery Yasmina Siadatan, also 27, who runs her own award-winning restaurant.
In a week where women have defined the agenda in politics — what with Machiavellian displays by Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint — there's something satisfying about women coming out on top in reality television too.
Dubbed “Little Miss Perfect” by Sir Alan's interview panel, Kate Walsh strolled into the final by virtue of appearing almost supernaturally calm and collected. The panel agreed that while she might come across as robotic and dispassionate at times, keeping a cool head was a strong business asset.
Yasmina Siadatan was credited with having similar steely qualities. “An incredibly confident woman,” someone concluded, shuddering slightly. Siadatan held her own even under excruciating questioning over her business accounts by Sir Alan's associate and former global troubleshooter Claude Litner. And she barely flinched as he sneered at the fact that she had borrowed money from her mother to start her business.
Walsh and Siadatan seem to represent a new breed of motivated young businesswoman: determined and steely without being bitchy or pushy. Not unlike, in fact, Apprentice interviewer and Birmingham City managing director Karren Brady: “I've been Businesswoman of the Year. And no one calls me a bitch.” (It's true. They don't.) Their fellow semi-finalist, 23-year-old senior sales consultant Debra Barr, arguably got fired for her ruthlessness: former colleagues reported that she was “aggressive and rude”.
Elsewhere this week, in a real-life boardroom, financial power broker Amanda Staveley, 35, was celebrating a £40 million windfall. She runs PCP Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Mayfair. Colleagues describe Staveley as someone who is prepared to work seven days a week (no flexi-time requests for her) but, crucially, say she is also “very warm” and avoids coming across as ruthless. Having helped Sheikh Mansour buy Manchester City Football Club last year, Staveley counselled him to buy Barclays shares seven months ago. This week he sold them, making a profit of £1.46 billion.
But while Staveley might be Sir Alan's dream boardroom candidate (not that he could afford her), in real life her breed is rare. Last month the Glass Ladder Report from Bird & Co Boardroom and Executive Mentoring found that “there are too few women in the pipeline — too few rising up financial career paths, too few gaining experience in running things, too few in the top executive roles.”
Women currently hold only 11 per cent of FTSE 100 directorships. Many business gurus — Sir Alan among them — put this down to women's inability to commit fully to their work. Sir Alan has said that he has to think twice before employing a woman at all: “If someone comes into an interview and you think to yourself, There is a possibility that this woman might have a child and therefore take time off' … it is a bit of a psychological negative thought.”
The Apprentice may offer hope but its record on women is not great. Katie Hopkins dropped out of the series three final when questioned closely on her childcare arrangements. There have been three male winners and only one woman, Michelle Dewberry (series two), who left Sugar's company after a few months. Although this is the second all-female final in five series (and there has never been an all-male final), Sir Alan's favourite female employee remains the indomitable Margaret Mountford.
Meanwhile, the women runners-up Sugar rejected have gone on to become household names. Saira Khan (series one) launched a successful skincare range and has an increasingly high-profile career as a TV presenter. Ruth Badger (series two) runs a business consultancy and has had her own Sky TV series. Claire Young (series four) runs a venue management company and has a string of lucrative brand endorsements. Perhaps through them Sir Alan has learned the hard way that overlooking female talent comes at a high price.
Next week's all-female final offers a crumb of comfort up against the picture in the real world. Last year the Equality and Human Rights Commission's Sex and Power report recorded a fall in the number of women in top positions. (And women still make up only 19.3 per cent of MPs.)
Another report this week showed that while women are outperforming men in higher education — and female students have outnumbered male for the past 16 years — they are still likely to earn less than men on leaving university. Seeing women triumph in The Apprentice is one thing. Watching it spread beyond our TV screens might take a bit longer.
Reader views (8)
When Napoleon, probably the last really great person to inhabit this planet, called the English a nation of shopkeepers, he meant it as an insult.
Although he knew only too well that commerce was vital, he also knew that the people who indulge in it are zeros or at best mediocre spirits.
How many entrepreneurs will be remembered a century from now? - Probably only Henry Ford and Bill Gates - and neither of them could be called a great spirit.
- Herve Antoine, Ashford, Kent, 05/06/2009 15:36
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Let's face it on the Apprentice TV show the male competition was pretty poor. I'm suprised more women haven't made the boardroom as the 'feminisation' of the workplace is gaining momentum. Once offices are all-female males are an extinct species- they'll never be hired again. Discrimination in other words.
- Paul, Kent, 05/06/2009 13:36
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Wow, series of pretty sexist comments from the males! Much as I agree that the women in the Labour party aren't much cop, that's because no one in the Labour party is much cop!The men are just as grim.
However, in terms of the standard of contestants in the Apprentice 1. as everyone says this is showbusiness 2. no-one with an ounce of real ability would apply UNLESS they were after a media career change (which several past contestants clearly have been)
Are these two girls indicative of a seachange? No, I don't think so. Are they talented? Possibly, but no more so than 1000s of young women working for small and regional companies throughout the UK. One comes across women like the 4 in the Apprentice final daily. But these are not the kinds of women who make it big in, say, the City or Industry. They can't survive in multinationals as they aren't team players, they are devious in a most unladylike and downright unpleasant manner (and the men were just as awful), they are foulmouthed and in short, are not the sort of people you'd want to put in front of your clients. But they do succeed elsewhere and in spades. Will we see these girls as CEOs of bluechips? Not likely - unless they learn to be more personable and pleasant. Will they be successful in regional companies? Absolutely - London is not the UK - there's a whole country out there full of successful women. There may be a glass ceiling in the City, but the rest of the country has alreay wised up to talented women.
- Jane, London, 05/06/2009 12:48
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How can Yasmina be in the final when she doesn't understand the meaning of the word turnover! some business woman she isn't!
- Zoe, London, 05/06/2009 12:00
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If I had to come in to work and see Yasmina Siadatan every day, methinks that I would quit pretty quickly.
- Edna Geddes, Hastings, England, 05/06/2009 11:45
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"In a week where women have defined the agenda in politics — what with Machiavellian displays by Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint — there's something satisfying about women coming out on top in reality television too."
If their fate had been left to the process of natural political selection on a non-gender basis, they'd all still be teachers, sweet shop assistants, failing social workers or stay-at-home mums.
Judged on merit, all of them would merit not much more than a kick in the pants.
Instead, they are the highly-promoted beneficiaries of reverse sexism; Calamity Jane third-raters who have become drunk on the fleeting tot of power that this Government has poured them before it finally self-combusts.
- Michael Miles, Brentwood, England, 05/06/2009 11:39
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People with real business acumen aren't going to bother applying for The Apprentice. For one reason, because of the embarrassment factor.
This is showbiz. Real business is boring to watch, so they will be choosing people who are all ego and likely to screw up and be entertaining to play shop.
When was running a restaurant regarded as big business? It's small business!
- Brenda Blessed, Plymouth, England, 05/06/2009 11:30
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Get real, this is show business not real business!
Most people are mystified by the people chosen in the first place and then mystified again by the choices that are being made of who stays in and who gets fired.
I stopped viewing after the second series when the male (I forget his name; it was a long time ago) who won everything he was involved in with flying colours was fired - because they came to the conclusion that he was all image and no substance during the interviews.
He was streets ahead of everyone in the tasks, so I stopped watching from then on.
- Eric Legge, Ongar, England, 05/06/2009 11:03
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